Practical jokes are risky

6:05 PM,
Sep. 3, 2013

Written by

Robert St. John

It's not that I was necessarily "bad" or misbehaved. I liked to have fun and I liked to laugh. I laughed when playing practical jokes on someone and I laughed just as hard, maybe even harder, when they were played on me.

Life at my house in the early 1970s was an enter-at-your-own-risk type of existence. My brother, four years my senior, and I were in a constant state of one-upmanship. Buckets of water were vicariously placed on door ledges, firecrackers were slid under bathroom doors, sheets were constantly shorted and one never knew who might be lurking in a closet poised ...